Atrocity

In that same vein (as the Bolivia-awareness blog), today I read yet another article about female suicide bombers in Iraq. This is my reaction:


floored
disgusted
discouraged
angry
sad, very very sad
mad
confused

No, I did not use a thesaurus. So you got my unfiltered, gut reactions. I began to think about a year ago that these women are forced into becoming suicide bombers, rather than choosing that path themselves. After all, there isn't even a fabled heaven of virgins awaiting a female martyr in Islam. After reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini I began to get a picture of the horrors of life as a female in a radical Islamist nation (Afghanistan in this book). An unethical, immoral, unfathomable responsibility is placed on the woman for the ludeness and violence of a man. Raped? Your fault! You allured the man and forced him to take you. Abused by your husband? Your fault! You're antagonistic and rebellious!


Now I would never consider myself a feminist, but I am absolutely appalled by the news confirming my most awful nightmares about the plight of the female. There is a woman (and thus I assume women) manipulating this sense of responsibility on the Muslim female. A woman! A mother of 6 is the one doing this! According to now 2 articles I have read (the first above), a woman has admitted to recruiting 80 female bombers, 23 who went through with committing suicide. She's not only preying on their helplessness by claiming to offer them liberation from their domestic lives, as I had suspected. Worse. She is actually orchestrating them being raped so that she can offer them restoration of their dignity by blowing themselves up. ........ !!!!!!!!


I usually try to keep it light here, but seriously. Please be aware. I have no idea how else to help the situation. If you are of the Muslim faith and are reading this, I don't know what to say. I suppose I would feel this way if I had read about the atrocities performed by soldiers in the Crusades. I like to think I would have stood up then. I can't believe this is all happening in the name of a faith and would especially upset if it were being done in the name of the faith I held. I'm rambling because I'm upset.


So the last thought I have is the words we were singing last night,


"God above all the world in motion. God above all my hopes and fears. I don't care what the world throws at me now. It's gonna be all right! Cause I know my God saves the day and I know his word never fails and I know my God made a way for me.


Salvation is here."